Yeah, yeah… I know I haven’t been blogging much here lately. Freelance work has been consuming most of my time when I’m not with family (or trying to claw out an existence with the DVD biz), and this month I started blogging for MacLife.com, the web portal for Mac|Life magazine.

I realize it’s not of much interest for the folks who follow my movie work, but those who know me are well aware that the Mac (and most everything Apple) has been a longtime passion of mine, so it’s quite a thrill to be getting paid to write about the stuff for a change. You can get a list of only my posts by clicking here.

September 1st, 2009
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Comments Off on Snow Leopard: This cat is a killer!
Posted by J.R. Bookwalter under Apple Talk, Reviews, Technology

Apple surprised everyone last week by unleashing their latest 10.6 version of Mac OS X (aka Snow Leopard) a bit early. It was expected in September, but the August 28 release date was welcomed by us “early adopters” who have gotten tired of reading about how slick it is on blogs. Show me the white cat, already!

And a slick beast it is. Of course, on the surface it’s a minor update offering very little in the way of new features… at least to casual users who might not appreciate the small nuances.

August 30th, 2009
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Comments Off on PushMail: How Apple should be doing iPhone e-mail
Posted by J.R. Bookwalter under Apple Talk, Gadgets, Technology

During my two weeks with the Palm Pre, the one thing I missed the most was how it notified me of new e-mail on all of my accounts via push. Any time an e-mail arrived in my inbox — regardless of which account it was — the Pre would light up and show me a short preview of the e-mail. If it was junk mail, I could avoid having to open up my mail just to be disappointed (same goes for random e-mails from friends or colleagues that aren’t time-sensitive).

On the iPhone, even with OS 3.0, there are only two options for push e-mail: MobileMe (which I have, and use for personal e-mail) or an Exchange account. But even with those, I’m still not getting the same experience from the Pre — I still have to actually unlock the phone and go into Mail (which kills the battery faster) instead of the iPhone displaying a preview notification.

I speak, of course, of the iPhone, and in particular, the great App Store that swung open its doors little more than a year ago. As any iPhone user can attest to, it’s a veritable playground of extra functionality that spoils us with every new release. Sure, other cell phones have had applications in the past (and most of them are scrambling to catch up to Apple even now), but let’s face it… they were kludges at best, and few people really used them as a result. The iPhone is clearly a mini-computer that happens to also make phone calls, and the success of the App Store is a testament to why cell phone carriers are nervous about their own little Berlin Wall that’s coming down now, a few bricks at a time.

But make no mistake, AT&T (aka “the Empire”) is striking back, and it’s going to take some great innovation and technology with it if it’s not careful.Read the rest of this entry »

There’s been quite a kerfuffle (if I can use that word in a sentence) going on in blog comments and forum threads around the ‘Net this week, since Monday’s Apple WWDC keynote announcing the new iPhone 3Gs model landing on June 19.

The Palm Pre has been exhaustively reviewed and dissected on numerous blogs by now, so I won’t go into a thorough review, but rather spend the rest of this second part discussing some minutiae that I haven’t seen discussed elsewhere as much. To me, it’s the small “gotchas” that make or break handsets like this, so hunker down and let’s get started.

Just a quickie sandwiched in-between the Palm Pre chatter. As predicted by many, Apple today announced the iPhone 3G S, a new model which adds a faster processor, faster 3G data transfer speeds, an upgraded, 3 megapixel camera with video recording & editing, voice control and digital compass, available Friday, June 19 for $199 (16 GB) or $299 (32 GB). And hey, from the outside it’s exactly the same as the current model, which means all of your cases, screen protectors and accessories will get another year’s worth of value for a change.

Also announced was the availability of iPhone OS 3.0 next Wednesday, June 17… which will certainly mark an unbearable 48 hours of waiting for me, since my current iPhone 3G is happily jailbroken & unlocked, and I want to keep it as such so I can sell it on eBay, or possibly to one of my wife’s friends in Ukraine, and subsidize some of the $499 I’ll have to pay for upgrading to the new model, since I’m only halfway through the 2-year contract from last year. (Bah!)

Kudos to Apple for the new model, and for not making us wait until July to get our hands on OS 3.0… that would have killed me. LOL

Unable to contain the lust I described in such detail back on May 19, I lined up this past Saturday with thousands (?!) of others to get a taste of the new Palm Pre (available exclusively from Sprint). For those who haven’t been paying attention, the Pre is basically a make-or-break handset for Palm (and to a lesser degree, Sprint, who has been bleeding customers for quite some time).

So, now that I’ve had my hands on a Pre for 48 hours, does it walk on water or can it barely swim? That depends on your expectations, and ultimately, your patience as a user.Read the rest of this entry »

Man oh man, it’s a great time to be a touchscreen gadget lover… that is, if you’ve got deep pockets or service with most of the major carriers in the U.S. (which I don’t, sadly). There is a veritable tidal wave of new phones coming this summer, beginning this Saturday, June 6, with the long-awaited Palm Pre from Sprint that I was salivating over last time.